Miami-Dade Police Chief’s Shooting Was Self-Inflicted, Officials Say

The chief of public security for Miami-Dade County, Fla., suffered critical head accidents from a self-inflicted gunshot late on Sunday and was hospitalized in Tampa, the authorities stated on Monday.

Alfredo Ramirez III, who serves in a twin position as the general public security chief and the director of the Miami-Dade Police Division, the most important police division within the Southeast, was in secure situation after present process surgical procedure on Monday, officers from Miami-Dade County and the Florida Division of Legislation Enforcement stated.

The police division stated Chief Ramirez underwent surgical procedure in Tampa on Sunday night and once more on Monday afternoon. The workplace of Mayor Daniella Levine Cava of Miami-Dade County stated she had traveled to Tampa in a single day to be with the chief’s household.

“All that issues proper now could be Chief Ramirez’s well-being,” Ms. Levine Cava stated, “and I be a part of his household, his family members and all of his Miami-Dade Police Division and Miami-Dade County household in praying for his swift restoration.”

Chief Ramirez, 52, who is called Freddy, suffered the harm on Interstate 75 south of Tampa, close to mile marker 244, based on the F.D.L.E, which is investigating the incident together with the Florida Freeway Patrol. Nobody else was injured.

“Legislation enforcement is a demanding and disturbing profession and occupation,” Mark Glass, the F.D.L.E. commissioner, stated throughout a quick information convention on Monday afternoon in Tampa, praising Chief Ramirez’s “stellar” profession. “Immediately is a tragic day in Florida.”

Chief Ramirez was attending a summer season convention of the Florida Sheriffs Affiliation, which started in Tampa on Sunday. The Tampa Police Division stated on Monday afternoon that officers had responded to a report simply after 6:30 p.m. on Sunday of a person with a gun outdoors the downtown Marriott lodge the place the sheriffs have been assembly. Commissioner Glass known as it a “potential home dispute.”

Officers “have been supplied thirdhand info alleging a male had pointed a gun at himself,” the Tampa police stated in an announcement.

The person was recognized as Chief Ramirez. Officers went to the chief’s Twelfth-floor lodge room, the place he advised them he had been concerned in an argument with a girl however “had not displayed a firearm,” the assertion by the Tampa police stated. “After further questioning, Ramirez said he had no intention to hurt himself or others.”

The assertion stated the girl who had argued with Chief Ramirez additionally advised the officers that “she didn’t have any considerations about her security being at risk.” The Tampa police didn’t identify the girl within the assertion.

One individual with information of the incident confirmed studies by The Miami Herald, CBS Miami, NBC Miami and WPLG Native 10, an ABC Information affiliate in Miami, that the chief was attending the convention in Tampa together with his spouse.

Requested if the Tampa police ought to have taken steps to grab Chief Ramirez’s gun, Mark Brutnell, the particular agent answerable for the F.D.L.E.’s Tampa workplace, stated that query was “a part of our investigation.”

“We’re so early on this, I can’t actually communicate to that at this level,” he stated.

Chief Ramirez’s place because the director of the Miami-Dade Police Division is appointed; he was chosen for the job by Ms. Levine Cava in January 2020. The division has greater than 4,700 staff and an working price range of greater than $850 million.

After subsequent yr’s elections, the job will change to turn out to be an independently elected sheriff’s place, as it’s in Florida’s different 66 counties. Chief Ramirez filed paperwork in Could to run for sheriff as a Democrat.

He has spent greater than 25 years with the division, based on his official biography.

In case you are having ideas of suicide, name or textual content 988 to succeed in the 988 Suicide and Disaster Lifeline or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/assets for an inventory of further assets.

Kitty Bennett contributed analysis.